


the only ritual I am acquainted with

by straightforwardly



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Extra Treat, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 01:27:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5111303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/pseuds/straightforwardly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the dust settles, Horatio stays. This is why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the only ritual I am acquainted with

**Author's Note:**

  * For [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts).



> Originally, this was going to be explicitly about Ophelia haunting Horatio, but it turned into something more introspective along the way. Hopefully you'll still enjoy this!
> 
> The title is taken from the poem “Elegy of Fortinbras” by Zbigniew Herbert, which I’m madly in love with, and has definitely influenced my characterization of Fortinbras. Of course, the context isn’t quite the same as in the poem, but I think it fits.

> **HORATIO**  
>  Never believe it:  
>  I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:  
>  Here's yet some liquor left.
> 
> **HAMLET**  
>  As thou'rt a man,  
>  Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.  
>  O good Horatio, what a wounded name,  
>  Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!  
>  If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart  
>  Absent thee from felicity awhile,  
>  And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,  
>  To tell my story.
> 
> — _Hamlet_ , Act 5, Scene 2  
> 

  


Horatio stays.

He has no cause to. Hamlet is dead, and his story told; already Fortinbras has carved out his throne. Each day the halls become less the halls of Hamlet, his friend, and more the halls of Fortinbras, the soldier. The castle has shed its skin like a snake, and like a snake it strikes, wounding Horatio with the memory of a familiar pattern, an old shade, when he least expects it. _Here, where I saw King Hamlet’s ghost; here, where I helped him drag Polonius’ body across stone, my hands slick with blood I did not shed._

_Here, where I watched him die, and did not follow_.

No, there is nothing left for him in Elsinore. And yet, he cannot go. _Tell my story_ , Hamlet had said, and who could care more for his story than Elsinore? Where before he wandered the halls unseen, now eyes follow him wherever he goes. _There. There is he, who saw it all unfurl_. Even Fortinbras, who has heard him speak of it before, who knows nothing that is not war, hungers for the tale. _Tell my story_ , and how could he leave, when so many wish to know?

Hamlet had known it would be so, Horatio sometimes thinks. Clever Hamlet; he must have known. What better way to chain Horatio to this life, than to give him a burden worthy of Sisyphus?

* * *

Though his daylight hours are filled with Hamlet’s memory in both thought and speech, it is not Hamlet who haunts his dreams, but Ophelia. 

Not of the shy, small, blushing creature he first met, but of the woman she became, or would have been, had madness not clouded her thoughts. She wanders the castle halls, her mien melancholy, but calm, Fortinbras’ banners hanging low around her. 

Every morning, he wakes to the smell of rosemary.

He’d never thought long upon her in life; ever, his attention had been on Hamlet. But now he dreams of her pacing the spot where her father died, tracing the path his blood had stained, and startles to find himself in his own chambers when he wakes. Sometimes, in the fog between wakefulness and sleep, he thinks he hears the soft sound of her voice.

In his waking hours, he finds himself returning to the places she had been. Here, she stood, as Hamlet shamed her; here she rambled, strewing flowers and herbs as the court whispered. 

Here she drowned, lovelorn and mad. Lovelorn, and lost. 

When he gazes into the water, he sees her standing there, just beyond his reflection.

* * *

_Tell my story_. Hamlet, clever fingers clenching a bloody wound, staring up at him with clear eyes, his voice steady. Ophelia, pale and wan, but standing tall, with flowers in her hair.

Horatio stays, and does.


End file.
